The Best Day

Thurston Moore

Amoeba Review

10/20/2014

Thurston Moore makes the Sonic Youth breakup a little easier to swallow with a warm salve of a solo album. Sonic Youth fans will delight add beautiful harmonics and familiar chords of a song like “Speak to the Wild,” as the permateenager sings infectiously, “the time has come to join a band.” “Forevermore’s” extended drone, slacker romance and heroic guitar runs feel like comfort food you feast on for eleven minutes. The Best Day is a relatively peaceful album, and the drone built into some of these tracks makes them bleed together somewhat. But Moore mixes things up to keep it interesting, offering glittering mandolin and psychosexual musings on “Tape,” a Television-style rave-up on the title track and good ol’ punk thrills on “Detonation.” It may not be much you haven’t heard from Thurston Moore, but it sure feels good to have him still making like this. Fans of both Sonic Youth and Moore’s solo work will find plenty to cherish on The Best Day.